Conde Balcom McCullough, known as Mac to friends, was a professor at Oregon State Agricultural College in Corvallis from 1916 to 1919. During his last year at Oregon State he informally headed the civil engineering department. Later as Oregons bridge engineer, he designed and built bridges that stand as monuments to engineering as well as artespecially his bridges on the Oregon Coast.

He was born on May 30, 1872, near Redfield, South Dakota. His family relocated to Iowa in 1891, and after his father died in 1904, Conde supported the family with odd jobs. Despite this hardship, he continued his education and graduated with a degree in civil engineering from Iowa State in 1910. He first worked for James Barney Marsh, owner of the Marsh Bridge Company in Des Moines and holder of the patent on the rainbow arch design. (The Yaquina Bay Bridge in Newport and most of the smaller McCullough spans along the coast are variations of Marshs design.) He left Marsh after a year to work for the Iowa State Highway Commission. In 1916, drawn to the northwest because he knew bridges were needed there, Conde took a job at Oregon State Agricultural College as a one-man structural engineering program. He settled in Corvallis with his wife and son and within two years was full professor and head of the civil engineering department.